Radio Free America: Political nonprofits are the establishment

Image by Nikos Michals

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I know the past decade has been dire, but we really shouldn’t expect politicians to lie to us. It’s why I was so relieved that Jordan Wood’s third campaign this cycle in Maine imploded, but why I’m worried Will Lawrence could win the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District.

Ideologically, Wood and Lawrence seem to come from different wings of the party, but they have one critical thing in common: They’re lying about running against the political establishment. Because as former nonprofit executives, they are the political establishment. 

There’s this idea that the Democratic Party is run from a smoke-filled room filled with party insiders, which was actually the case for the century after the Civil War. But as Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld outlined in “The Hollow Parties,” changes to party governance in the ‘70s decentralized Democratic functions to the extent that insiders no longer fit together in a single room, while anti-tobacco campaigns got rid of most of the smoke. Combine that with the Ralph Nader-inspired new left that urged interest groups to achieve their goals through donor-funded litigation instead of mass mobilization, and the void was soon filled by various groups jockeying for position.

So while the DNC is broke, groups like End Citizens United (where Wood was a VP) and Sunrise Movement (which Lawrence co-founded) have filled the void. And it’s worth looking into those groups in particular to illustrate how the new class of political insiders have hobbled the fight against the far right.

Let’s start with End Citizens United. It was founded more than a decade ago and has done nothing to end the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, as political spending and corruption have only burgeoned since then. 

Screenshot via my text messages

The group spent a lot to support Democrats in federal elections, but much of its fundraising was done through a firm called Mothership that sends email and text spam (like the message above that was meant for my 71-year-old mother). Mothership has gotten $282 million from donors, only to send $11 million back to campaigns. And notably, Mothership was founded by Jordan Wood’s husband. Wood insists that there were firewalls in place while he was at End Citizens United, but that doesn’t excuse Mothership’s unethical conduct and End Citizens United’s participation in it.

So it was pretty rich of Wood to campaign as a political outsider who was focused on fighting corruption when he and his family spent much of the last decade profiting off of fundraising tactics that are at best reviled by anyone with a cellphone. Thankfully, Democrats managed to avoid nominating him in each of the three races he participated in this cycle, but Will Lawrence is still on the ballot next month and has similar liabilities.

Lawrence co-founded Sunrise Movement in 2017 and worked there through 2021. By then, it was a multimillion dollar organization with a staff of 100 that worked closely with congressional Democrats and sent volunteers to work with their campaigns. It also seemed to be a shambolic mess, earning criticisms across the spectrum from Matt Yglesias to Jacobin. 

The centrist and leftist critiques both argue that the group had lost focus on its core mission of lowering carbon emissions and was more concerned with splashy stunts and branching out into other left-wing causes. The climate bill that Congress ultimately passed in 2022 bore little resemblance to the one Sunrise wanted. And since then, the group has devolved into an incoherent critic of the Democratic Party, even as it seeks power within it.

And even if you don’t think Sunrise’s track record should disqualify Lawrence, then the track record of national political nonprofit workers in elections should. Because at my last job, I looked into which professions were most likely to be electoral overperformers. It was a varied list, but small business owners and local government employees tended to pop up a lot. It really seems like people want candidates whose livelihood is tied to their local communities, whether in the private or public sector.

On the other hand, our control group was far more heavy on political staffers and nonprofit workers. Perhaps that’s because general election voters can sniff out when somebody’s a member of the political establishment. When you work at a big nonprofit, your livelihood is ultimately tied to the ability to get big donations, which is also one of the things voters hate most about politicians and politics in general. Voting for a candidate with that background is a real risk in a swing district like MI-07.

So as Michigan voters go to the polls for the Democratic primary, they’re welcome to vote for Lawrence because they agree with him on the issues. But the idea that he’s running against the establishment is laughable. He’s running against his colleagues.

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AROUND AMERICA

• Arizona had its primaries on Tuesday, and let’s take a look at some of the Republicans that’ll be on the ballot in the fall:
  • Gubernatorial nominee Andy Biggs allegedly sought a pardon after Jan. 6 and once protected a child trafficking cult from law enforcement
  • Congressional nominee Mark Lamb threatened women he sent nude pics to. He’s currently sheriff of a large county, though before his law enforcement career, he ran a paintball business that went bankrupt. 
  • State Rep. Lisa Fink wants you to learn more about the John Birch Society
  • State Sen. Shawnna Bolick is touting an endorsement from anti-vaxxers
  • Gary Garcia Snyder, one of the key characters in the widely debunked “2,000 Mules” conspiracy movie, was nominated for the state House in a swing seat 

• Ken Paxton could still win the Texas Senate race, but the fact that he’s never really had to try in a general election before is starting to show.
• While much of the focus in Wisconsin is on the chaos in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, the party is on the verge of winning legislative majorities there for the first time in decades.
• Law professor Quinn Yeargain notes that the South Carolina law allowing for a snap primary to replace the late Lindsey Graham on the Republican ballot likely violates federal law protecting the voting rights of military members serving abroad. As he points out, the Trump DOJ seems to admit that the state disenfranchises the people it’s putting in harm’s way in the Middle East but won’t try to enforce federal law.
• Two of the finest men on television, Rick Steves and Ken Jennings, have teamed up to support Washington’s millionaire’s tax. As an aside, if you ever travel to Europe, the only advice you ever need comes from Steves’ website and travel books. 

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INTERNET STUFF I LIKED THIS WEEK

I miss the World Cup. The BBC recap video above really captures the vibe, not just the games but the fans, the fun, the spectacle, all of it. It was a blast, even with Trump cursing the USMNT and lingering around Spain getting the trophy like the weird uncle in a teen’s graduation photo. 

Next summer, we have the Women’s World Cup. The year after that, we have Euro 2028, and Copa America. But the year after that… the Confederations Cup? Forget that, let’s do an FA Cup-style tournament as a warmup. That means while higher-ranked teams get byes, the draw is totally random, so it’s easier to get Cinderella stories like Cabo Verde going far. It’d be a logistical challenge, but it’d make FIFA loads of money, and FIFA exists for no reason other than to make a bunch of guys sitting in an office in Switzerland loads of money.

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BOOK CLUB

In a way, it’s just brute, free-market capitalism. People in the United States in Europe are lonely, and poor young Nigerians are willing to talk to them online in exchange for Amazon gift cards and participating in cryptocurrency laundering schemes. Of course, the Nigerians pretend to be attractive young women, swashbuckling young men or secret celebrities as part of the scheme, which is what makes it so morally abhorrent.

Carlos Barrágan’s dive into the world of romance scams in “The Yahoo Boys” ends up covering the brutal sadness on both sides of the Atlantic/Mediterranean. While the Nigerians certainly aren’t blameless, the reason why these romance scams proliferate (and will likely be made worse by AI) is because of the tech companies that do such a good job of isolating people. It’s more proof that we need platform temperance now.

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HELP US OUT

Thanks to everyone who sent us anti-diarrheal hacks for cooking vegetables, especially this gochujang cabbage recipe from The New York Times. I bought some gochujang sauce on sale a month ago and have been looking for more excuses to use it.

Speaking of! Now that I know you can help me with cooking advice, what else should I be using that gochujang on? I’m thinking it goes well with fish tacos, but I’m open to other ideas. Email me what you think.

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